Price knew all the right buttons to press to excite a young reader - exotic locations, nasty villains, wild animals and lashings of peril

Willard Price makes the pulse-rate soar

People think of it as a children's book, but that's not all it is. What seared my imagination was its surrealism. The rat, the mole and badger could talk, but they could also change size: a badger could crawl down a rat hole, a toad could drive a car. At nine or 10 that fascinated me and that made a deep impression on my career

A book about the love of friends and the joys of existence

I loved Toad of Toad Hall and his merry antics, especially with his motor car - poop poop!

One of our greatest classics and as true and entertaining now as it has ever been

For generations of English children, the gentle adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, Toad and the other characters from The Wind In The Willows have been part of the magic of growing up

It is about magic - just the right kind of magic. It thrills me still to read it.

So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way...my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas...and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!